Citation for Assessment in Special Education: A Practical Approach

Pierangelo, Roger, and George A. Giuliana.  Assessment in Special Education: A Practical Approach. 4th Ed.  New Jersey: Pearson, 2012. Print.

Collaboration with Families and Other Educators.

Collaboration is tied closely to communication.  In order for families and educators to have a good relationship with you as a teacher, one must first open the line of communication.  Once the open line of communication is established, then the teacher can build their relationships with the other educators and families.  My Mentor teacher has strong family ties with the student’s parents.  If she is running low on school supplies and needs items soon, then she sends out an email to the designated parents who volunteer to contribute when necessary.  These “life lines” that consist of the parents are what makes the details in the classroom go smoothly and leave the teacher with focusing on the lesson objectives.  This strong connection can come in handy when teachers in the younger grades for "early childhood interventions that are important for a student who needs intervention."  The teacher can also talk to other educators to collaborate on rotations for the day/week.  Review over lesson plans and collaborate with one another to see if they can relate their own lesson plans together to build on the students overall learning outcome.  When it comes to communicating with the parents, my mentor teacher prefers to communicate through email and if personal, both email and phone call will be given.  When dealing with other educators, face to face meeting are preferred to collaborate in fine detail what their expectations and lesson plans are. 

Inclusion in the Classroom

The class I am currently working in, there is mild inclusion taking place with two students.  My mentor teacher does a wonderful job including the student in the classroom, but places him in the back of the classroom with only one other student, while the other students are arranged with five or six student clusters.  There is a teacher aid that comes into the classroom to work with the students and verbally read out questions and help clarify any misunderstandings.  I asked the teacher if she had ever been in a "eligibility committee for the responsibly for a student before and after they were classified in special education."  This particular student does not like to stray from the school schedule and tends to act out when the day does not occur in the same manner.  The other students are not distracted by the one student and are actually encouraging of the one student.  I personally believe that the student with mild autism benefits from being in an inclusion room because of the interaction with other students.  The classroom as a whole also benefits from having the student with mild autism, because they are learning life skills of how to work together and become aware of being considerate of those around you.  The teachers in the fourth grade also benefit from having the student included in the classroom because they are forced to think of their traditional teaching in a different way and how to approach teaching with different learning strategies. 

Writing Assessment and Instruction

In my field placement, I am in a 4^th grade geometry class; therefore I have not had the privilege of working with a literacy coach or language arts teacher to properly answer this week’s questions on writing assessment and instruction.  However, I did talk to the 4^th grade language arts teacher about how she assesses students and documents their progress and how she would create a "comprehensive report in special education."  She explained how everything the students are working on is geared towards their STAR test at the end of the year and the components required by the state of Texas to meet the writing requirements. She mentioned that she has never written a "comprehensive report that was based on finding of the students academic work."  All teachers in the fourth grade keep running assessments on their students that are administrated depending on where the student is intellectually.  Based off the students progress the teacher then determines the lesson plan for the next following days and if there is a significant review day that is need for the students to truly comprehend the objective. In the classroom while actively working with their students, the teacher does not focus too much time on spelling for the students, because that is expected of them to know and review at home so they can perform in the classroom.  Peer evaluation is also a prominent way a teacher can assess a students’ progress and this give each student the opportunity to peer teach, giving the teacher more time to work one-on-one with students who are struggling more.

Mathematics Assessment & Instruction

I witness mathematics assessment and instruction every day in the current field placement in a fourth grade classroom.  On a typical day, the students rotate from three different classes and only get 90 minutes in a classroom.  During this time, the students start out with a catch-up question… “What do I need to do or finish getting myself caught up?”  Then the teacher will start her lesson and implement it with enough time at the end to review and assess the students on the information covered.  There is really no "formal referral" for a suspected disability for any of the students, so my Mentor Teacher is able to go about her lesson plan.  If students need to review over a specific mathematics skill or strategy, then the teacher either addressed the concern or made a note to combine the next day’s schedule to incorporate the skill/strategy.  Worksheets that build off of the lesson of the day also give the teacher a better understanding of what the students need to review and refresh.  I was informed that when grading the teacher will then decide whether or not the worksheet will be taken for a grade or will be a good review strategy for the students in the classroom.  This is an interesting way to keep the students interested in their results of their academic performance and acts as a motivator so they can not only get good grades, but move onto the next mathematics lesson. 

Reading Assessments

With my field placement being in a fourth grade mathematics classroom, the students do not read as much as the literature or science classes do.  However, in the class, my mentor teacher does have students read aloud the questions to the class.  This is the only form of reading that the class does and therefore I was unable to observe a reading assessment or instruction in action.  I was able to talk to my mentor teacher about ways the reading literacy coach performs reading assessments.  In our conversation I found that strategies such as reading fluency of full paragraphs followed by reading comprehension questions.  Students seem to struggle with reading comprehension including reading in the mathematics class.  Some students have trouble with multi-step problems because of the phrasing of the words.  In the fourth grade, students start off the day in the core classrooms that they need the most intervention.  There is a hand full of student in the literature classroom, especially with the STAR testing that is about to take place.  Another strategy my Mentor Teacher uses is "preferential intervention strategies where a team meeting with the teachers will take place to discuss the students progress in the classroom.:  Also at the beginning of the school day and if any free time presents itself, then the students are supposed to read their books.  Most students are excited about reading their books so allowing them to read at the end of class in an extra incentive.

Response to Intervension

When it comes to the students with learning disabilities, the school must "allow students to use 'response to scientific, research-based intervention' as par of an evaluation"  These evaluations of the students are able vital for their future and need to be identified in "early interventions" for the student to benefit from the RIT.  Student who are not identified early struggle and usually fall behind in academics and social aspects of school.  Talking to my Mentor Teacher she said that at the school there are a few RIT written every so often for students and are updated periodically or as needed.

Teacher's Expectations

This week in field placement, my teacher was absent and therefore I was nervous not knowing who I would be working with for a lesson my mentor teacher and I put together.  I expected the class to be out of control and giving the substitute and myself a difficult time.  Quite the opposite occurred.  The students were more hyper, but the substitute I worked with today was great with her expectations she had for the classroom.  A perfect example of her "auditory" expectations was when the students were lining up to go to the next class.  A handful of students rushed up and lined up by the door, talking loudly and pushing others in order to get to the front of the line.  She boldly said, “back to your seats.”  At first the students were clueless on what was going on, but when she waited they returned to their desk.  Then she asked “if you have a sister line up.” The second time around less students were talking or loud.  But there was still noise, so she said “back to your seats.”  The students returned with a frown to their seats.  With persistence, the teacher asked “I you have a brother line up.”  Very silently the entire class lined up to get ready for the next rotation.  I was impressed with how directive she was with the students and equally as impressed at how they performed the task as she desired without her saying what they needed to do to line up without being asked to return to their desks.  The expectation was demonstrated and not verbalized, yet the students were able to perform what she was wanting.  Some other behaviors I have seen both my mentor and substitute teacher perform are verbal commands, nonverbal commands, written instructions and peer communications from the teacher’s actions. 

Assessment Blog: Christine Jordan

Assessment is constantly taking place in the classroom where I have my field placement.  The teacher is always assessing for understanding through verbal questions, comprehension by testing/quizzing the students and application through the various activities performed by the students.  This is a great way to document the students "adaptive behavior to situations one may face."  When it comes to grading and keeping track of the student’s progress, quizzes or questions with partners are administered daily for the teacher to calculate the areas that need to be touched up on and the areas the students surpassed academically.  My mentor teacher is good about thinking on the spot when necessary and always has a plan B and sometimes C.  Another way assessments are preformed in the class room are by weekly “test for comprehension” quizzes that the students take with their “blind folders” up so no one else can see their work.  Then after the quizzes, the teacher collects them and when she can, she grades them and marks the student’s scores next to their name on a roll-call sheet.  She is then able to assess who needs more one-on-one help from the teacher or a co-teacher.  I was able to help out by taking a few students who performed below par and worked with them on their corrections. I was able to see firsthand how assessments go hand in hand with the progress of the student and their academic growth. 

Planning and Instruction

At the Elementary School in the fourth grade classroom, the teacher already has established a daily planner and shares the day’s agenda with me before the students come into the classroom for the start of the day.  The students are working on their benchmark testing and the day I had my field study, the fourth graders were testing over Social Studies.  This is the only form of "achievement tests" that the students really have, since the class is fourth grade geometry.  The students seems stressed and anxious about this test and when I asked them, they told me that it was the third day in a row that they were taking tests.  Because of the testing that was going on in the entire fourth grade, the teachers had a different instructional plan than the previous week.  During the “conference” time, the teachers talk about the plans for the day and what all they want to try and accomplish, especially since the three fourth grade classes rotate throughout the day.  As the classes begin to rotate, my mentor teacher is a specialist in math and is working on a practice test all three classes have accomplished the prior week.  After giving back the practice tests back, she asked me to take the students who scored below a 60 to a separate room to work on their practice test with them.  I found this to be extremely beneficial for the students and I see who having a co-teaching system can be utilized. I was unable to see differentiated instruction in the classroom, because the student with special needs was taken out of the room for testing. 

Field Placement: Day One-Planning and Instruction

Organization is the key, in my opinion, to obtaining a classroom with well managed students.  Planning and instruction are also very important skills a teacher needs to know when working in a classroom. While talking with my field placement teacher, she mentioned that there is not a wide scope in her class, but she does have a student who barley falls on the Autism spectrum.  Because of this one student, she takes into consideration his personal needs.  I noticed that as a math teacher, she rotates her classroom between three classes.  As the students go through the different stations the teacher would perform a "frequency distribution to form a running data sheet" on who scored what.  It was clear to see that with only 45 minutes they were not going to finish the activity that the teacher had put in place.  A five minute warning was given at the end of the rotation and when the students had to travel to the next room, they had journals that they placed all items not finished and if the work was finished, the students could turn them into a bin.  The teacher announced that the next day would me a mustard and catch-up day. They would “muster the effort to catch-up” on all work that they have not finished.  The overall day consisted of a schedule that worked around the students and allowed for the teacher and myself to give more one-on-one time to the students, especially those who need it.

Christine Jordan
From: The Colony, TX.
Major: Multidisciplinary Studies
I am taking this class because it is required for my degree.
I hope to gain knowledge to apply to my future classes.
Assessment: I'm not familiar with assessment, but I look forward to learning about it!